Firearms legislation - It’s time for new controls

THE ruling at Tuam District Court that overturns a Garda decision not to grant licences to two young men who wished to buy semiautomatic handguns underlines the urgent need to reform gun ownership legislation.

The Garda objections were overruled because the two men already held shotgun licences and the judge contended that “a gun was a gun”.

Such an analysis suggests that our judiciary need to familiarise themselves with the lethal capabilities of semiautomatic handguns. Any suggestion that a 9mm pistol, capable of firing 17 high-velocity rounds without pause, is in the same category as a shotgun is dangerously wide of the mark.